The following abbreviations are herewith defined, at least some of which are referred to within the following description.
3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project
AG Access Gateway
ANDSF Access Network Discovery and Selection Function
AP Access Point
BG Border Gateway
DL Downlink
DNS Domain Name System
eNB Evolved Node B
EPC Evolved Packet Core
ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute
FTP File Transfer Protocol
FQDN Fully Qualified Domain Name
H-PLMN Home Public Land Mobile Network
IP Internet Protocol
IoT Internet of Things
ISP Internet Service Provider
LAN Local Area Network
LTE Long Term Evolution
MPTCP MultiPath Transport Control Protocol
MME Mobility Management Entity
MMS Multimedia Messaging Service
OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
PDN Packet Data Network
PDU Protocol Data Unit
PGW Packet Data Network Gateway
PLMN Public Land Mobile Network
RAN Radio Access Network
SC-FDMA Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access
SGW Serving Gateway
SIP Session Initiation Protocol
SMS Short Messaging Service
TCP Transmission Control Protocol
UDP User Datagram Protocol
UE User Entity/Equipment (Mobile Terminal)
UL Uplink
URI Uniform Resource Identifier
V-PLMN Visited Public Land Mobile Network
VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol
WAN Wide Area Network
WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
In wireless communications networks, all data connections (e.g., PDN connections) supported in 3GPP mobile networks support only continuity with IP-address preservation, wherein the IP address is maintained for an extended period of time. In other words, every PDN connection in the 3GPP network maintains its IP (or IP addresses, in case both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are assigned) for the entire duration of this PDN connection. This requires a fixed mobility anchor at the PGW for every PDN connection.
To maintain the fixed mobility anchor as a UE moves from one location to another, significant mobility management signaling is required and the network. For example, when the UE moves to a new eNB, not only the S1u bearer of the PDN connection is relocated but also the S5/S8 bearer of the PDN connection may be relocated should the UE moves to an area served by a new SGW.
Bearer relocations (required to maintain the same fixed anchor for the PDN connection) increase the signaling load and the network, especially when UEs are highly mobile and their population is large. As the UE population in a mobile network increases, the signaling load becomes unmanageable.